


September 1665 (Bring Out Your Fangs)

by orphan_account



Series: An Unlikely Pair [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Gen, Vampire Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-12-11 13:12:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	September 1665 (Bring Out Your Fangs)

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm such a history buff and I love fleshing out my characters. Here y'go.
> 
> Rated mature for the gore. No sex, sorry :(

Merlin remembered when he found that first red blotch on his inner thigh. It was a cold September morning and he was freezing as he changed out of his thin night clothes. He hadn't been in to work for ages because everyone was so frightened due to the plague. 

His heart started racing as he stared at the red ring. He thought he had been careful. He thought he had taken every precaution. Now, as he heard the dreadful "Bring out your dead!" echoing through the street outside, he had half a mind to just step right out and jump into the cart willingly. It was only a matter of time anyway.

When Merlin finally did die, it was alone in his small flat on his eroding wooden pallet of a bed. As the worst of his final sneezing fit set in, he saw shadows moving in the corner of his eye. He thought it was the flickering candle flame by his side, disturbed by his fierce exhalations. Then as his eyes closed for the final time, he heard a desperate voice whisper, "Live, my son," and there was a sudden sharp sting on his wrist.

Later, remembering the dancing shadows, it seemed obvious there had been someone else there with him. He recalled the voice, a hopeful, determined-not-to-give-up tone, but could never remember the words spoken. He had already slipped too far into death.

But before he could think of anything, there had been the thirst. It scorched his throat, like a white hot rod shoved down his esophagus. He drank all he could, gulped down litres of water, and it never satisfied him. 

Everyone in his neighbourhood had died, so it wasn't until he went further into the city that he realised what he was missing. He could hear every heartbeat within a mile radius. It pulsed like a drum inside his head and he followed the sound like a predator. The closer he got the more excited he became. He started running and suddenly he found himself in the lower floor of a house of flats. He had run straight through a wall like it was nothing. And it hadn't been running so much as it was  _flying._

But figuring that out would be for later. Right now he was so thirsty nothing else mattered. He flew through the intricate backstreets, alleys, and roads, until he saw a man laying drunk in his own urine. Alone.

"Your eyes," the man had drawled as Merlin approached slowly with bent knees. "They're all...black."

Merlin could hear the blood pumping through the poor bloke's veins. He could see the vein in his neck pulse as his heartbeat sped up from fright.

Merlin licked his lips and in the next instant the man didn't have a head attached to his body. In his excitement, Merlin had ripped it off and the man's blood came gushing out, a broken white bone stump in the middle. The blood splashed Merlin's face and he dove in to get as much as he could into his mouth. It was so refreshing. He peeled the skin off to get at more of the man's insides and licked the meaty muscles and tissues like he couldn't get enough, because he couldn't.

He didn't bite off anything. It felt unnatural to chew now, and it wasn't substance that he wanted, but liquid. Feeling this man's warm essence course through him was unlike any other happiness he'd known before.

He loved blood. He loved being covered in it, he loved seeing it ooze out of the pale body, and he especially loved drinking it. 

When his thirst was properly quenched, he started to play a bit. Breaking through the wall so easily and ripping off the man's head had clued him in to his new strength. What else could he do?

Merlin took hold of the corpse's shoulder and gave it a good tug. The whole right arm pulled out of the socket. Merlin shrieked in laughter with childish glee. It was like pulling the wings off a fly. 

He continued to rip off limbs until the corpse was just a torso. The shoulder was separated from the forearm, which was separated from the hand, then the fingers. The legs were broken down as well.

That's how Merlin was at first. He would take people, healthy or sick, child or full grown, unawares, rip them apart and bathe in their blood as he drank. They weren't people anymore. They were his playthings, puppets to be drained of life quicker than they could blink an eye. He learned many things too. Like how he no longer had a reflection, how he couldn't cross running water, and how the sunlight burned his skin. And it wasn't really flying that he had done, it was running. But it was so fast that it had felt as one might imagine flight to be.

He also learned that if one left mutilated bodies lying around, it was bound to get noticed. After seventy years of unrestrained killing and feeding, more than just a few humans started paying attention.

They caught him in a crowded place, so he wasn't able to tell that one heartbeat in particular had been following him. Then suddenly everyone was clearing the space around him, isolating him in a circle. A flame was lit and the next thing he knew he was surrounded by a wall of fire.

He panicked. His scream was loud and unnatural, and if anyone had any doubts that he was the monster plaguing the lower part of London, they were dispelled then. His eyes went dark and he flitted around in desperate attempts to get free, but the fire was closing in around him.

Then someone threw a torch at him and his shirt caught fire. He ripped it off and flung it aside but a couple flames had licked his skin. He cowered on his knees, squeezed his eyes shut, sure his death was imminent, and this time there would be no escaping it.

But soon after he felt hands clutch him and drag him out of the blaze. He kept his eyes closed, afraid of what he might see, and only opened them when there were no more heartbeats and shouting filling his ears.

That's what made him open his eyes, the fact that he felt arms around him yet there was no pulse to signal a human presence.

He looked up into the blue eyes of a blond vampire. "They nearly had you, mate," his saviour said.

Merlin remained silent and let himself be held. His body was still shaking from panic and shock. This confused him. His body hadn't done anything like tremble or need oxygen for seventy years. Now he couldn't get it under control.

The strong arms wrapped more tightly around him, calming him. "It's alright now," the soothing voice said. "You're safe. You're safe."

"Safe," Merlin repeated the word. 

"That's right. Why don't you come with me? There's some people you need to meet."

Merlin just nodded and let this new man carry him to wherever he wanted. He was cradled in his arms and Merlin wrapped his own around the reassuring neck, hid his shameful face in the crook. When they reached their destination, the blond vampire set Merlin down.

"You probably don't want them to see you like this."

Merlin set his jaw and nodded. He straightened himself up and squared his naked shoulders. 

"Ah, now there is a man with confidence," the vamp said, patting Merlin on the back. "I just hope your voice comes out as such. Come on then."

It was the back of a pub they walked into. People with skin just as pale as Merlin's sat around lazily on stools and benches, talking quietly amongst themselves. All sound stopped when they walked in.

"Edwin, you're back," one man said. He was short and bald with a wide, stern face. "This is the boy?"

Merlin's saviour, Edwin apparently, nodded. "Ya. He'd been surrounded when I got to him. You were spot on about that bucket o' water."

"And your name, boy?" the bald man asked.

Merlin stuck his chin out defiantly. "I'm not a boy. I'm ninety-seven."

A few of the vampires snickered and Merlin deepened his scowl at that. But the bald man was quiet and contemplative. 

"Your name?" he asked again.

"Merlin."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Merlin. My name is Alator." Alator stuck his hand out and Merlin took it, squeezed as hard as he could only to find that it had no effect on the man. Alator's lips twitched as he held back a smile and Merlin decided right then that he didn't like him.

"Merlin, this man here is Edwin. He's a little older than you."

Edwin offered his hand and Merlin shook it with regular force. He liked this Edwin fellow, mostly because he'd saved him and because he was safe with him.

"Thank you, Edwin."

"It was nothing. I would have got to you sooner if it hadn't been so bloody crowded."

"I'm grateful you got to me at all."

A new voice chimed in from across the room, high and mocking. "I thought he was supposed to be a savage or something. Uncultured. Seems civilised enough to me." It was a blond-haired woman with a fierce-looking glint in her eyes.

Merlin bared his fangs at her, hissing, and she only laughed. A couple other vampires laughed as well. 

"Why don't the three of us go sit down somewhere more private?" Alator suggested. "And we'll get you a new tunic."

They walked up the stairs, and that was as private as it was going to get. Each word from downstairs could still be heard from upstairs and vice versa, but nobody was rude enough to interrupt them now.

"Edwin, go ahead," Alator said once they were all settled around a small table. Merlin played idly with the hem of his newly borrowed shirt, the fabric much more soft than anything he'd worn in his previous life.

"Right. Merlin, we want you to join our coven."

Merlin tilted his head to one side. "Coven? Like with witches?"

Edwin laughed, and Alator couldn't help but do so too. Merlin was tired of being laughed at for one night.

"No. A vampire coven, Merlin."

Merlin chewed his lip thoughtfully. He'd been friendly as a mortal and loved interaction, but since dying and being reborn into this creature, he hadn't felt much inclination for group activities.

"You know that's what you are, yes?" Alator asked.

"Yes, I've figured  _that_ much, thanks," Merlin spat. They all thought he was an idiot, clearly, just because he was young.

"Before you make up your mind, why don't you stay with us for a while? Let us teach you a few things, and if we get to be friends, you're free to join permanently," Edwin advised.

Alator nodded his agreement and looked to Merlin for acceptance or denial. 

Merlin shrugged. "I've nothing better to do, I suppose. And it's not as though I can return to where a mob of people are trying to burn me to ashes."

"That's one of the first things we'll do: blending in." Edwin looked out the window, and indeed the sun was beginning to peek out above the smaller buildings. "But for now, we rest. To the cellar then, Al?"

 

****

The first thing they did was leave London. It wasn't only the angry mob, it was also the fact that Merlin's face had been around for far longer than it should have been, and people were sure to get suspicious. They went to France, where Merlin learnt not only how to blend in, woo his victims, and feed quietly, but a new language as well.

They stayed there five years before going briefly back to London to visit the coven, then heading off to Ireland. They stayed in Ireland a year, then travelled back to England. They didn't go to London, but stayed instead in a small nameless town just outside of it. There, Merlin learnt how to create a thrall (which he nearly gave up trying to master because it was so frustratingly difficult) and how to make a new vampire if he wanted to (which he definitely never wanted to), and also how to fight.

He was naturally skilled with weapons, and even already had one of his own: his father's trusty dirk. That was soon replaced by much better blades, but he always kept the dirk with him.

Living close to London kept him in contact with the coven, and through them he became skilled in more than fighting. He learnt the advanced concepts of charisma and charm, wit, and how to handle being around blood without losing control. After all, any given woman in a crowd could be bleeding and bring Merlin's practised disguise to ruin.

After that was the American Revolutionary War. Merlin wanted to put his new skills to the test, and a war seemed like the perfect opportunity. He and Edwin enlisted to quell the rebellion overseas and together they fought the raging American settlers and their upset Native American friends.

When that turned out to be worse than Merlin had bargained for, he and Edwin parted ways. Merlin travelled back to France for a while, then to Spain, India, a short five years in England again when he tried his hand at being a poet, then to China, Italy, and finally Germany. He held all kinds of jobs and learnt all about the different cultures. Travelling, almost as much as war, made him wise, and over time, the blood-thirsty monster inside him was tamed.

In 1890, Merlin returned to London and sought out Edwin, who he found fighting a werewolf on the outskirts of the city. Merlin snuck up behind the beast and ripped its head off, grinning victoriously as he greeted Edwin after longer than a century of absence. They shared a flat for three years until one day, Gwen, Merlin's friend since before he was undead, came to them and offered them a place in a coven she was putting together. Merlin was to be her second in command. 

Not much happened after that. Nimueh joined, Mordred was mistakenly created, and Merlin eventually went off to war for the second time. He could never pinpoint why exactly he chose to, but it was probably as a sort of masochistic punishment for making an undead child. When he returned from war this time, he didn't go back to the lounge but instead made his home in a flat using the money he had saved from his travels. He was still Gwen's lieutenant, but he controlled things from a distance. Not that they needed much minding. It was really only Mordred who needed chaperoning, and Merlin even took another eight-year leave of absence in 1980 to go teach at a university in his home country, Wales.

He and Edwin's relationship had plummeted as well after he returned from World War Two. Merlin's decision to join another pointless war had made him bitter. It was bad enough that Gwen put Merlin in charge in the first place. Edwin had dragged a shaking Merlin out of certain death, had taught him everything he knew, was older than him by an hundred years, and yet still he was considered inferior. His immense respect for Gwen was the only thing that barred him from questioning her judgement.

When Merlin left again to teach in Wales, to engage in another of his petty distractions, and didn't even consider the coven worthy enough of more than a few visits, Edwin became even more infuriated. What kind of leader would treat their followers this way? He could do an infinitely better job. Still, they had been friends for a long time, and he wasn't (well, he was trying his best) going to hold it against Merlin.

Then Merlin fell in love with a  _werewolf._


End file.
